


What the Future Holds

by Chaosreigning



Category: Naruto
Genre: Future Tense, Gen, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:16:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2696072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaosreigning/pseuds/Chaosreigning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Minato arrives home again, he’ll have two students instead of three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What the Future Holds

**Author's Note:**

> This was written three years ago, so it definitely doesn't fit into canon anymore. Posted for archival purposes.

When Minato arrives home again, he’ll have two students instead of three.

Sometimes, it will feel like less.

It will never get easier to watch Rin fall to pieces, bit by bit over the course of the years, helped along by the life shinobi have to live, but he’ll do all he can to ease her pain. He’ll shield her from the callousness of the mission desk as best he can, offer her his shoulder to lean on and quiet guidance, try to keep her spirits up as often as he can. He’ll go to the Uchiha when he realizes what she’s doing and secure a promise from Fugaku himself that her late night visits to Obito’s grave will never be interrupted by any of the patrols that guard the district. But Minato will never quite know what to do to ease the pain of her loss except be there for her, and he’ll always know that won’t be enough.

Kakashi’s pain will affect Minato less, in ways. Kakashi has always been harder than Rin, made tougher by his genius and the tragedies he has already suffered. But less is a comparative term, and Minato’s heart will still ache every time he finds the younger man sitting at the memorial. Minato will do as much for Kakashi as he’ll do for Rin, but in different ways. The realization that leaving the Sharingan uncovered isn’t an option will be a fast one, and helping Kakashi learn to compensate for the loss of his depth perception will be only marginally easier than managing the boy’s grief-fuelled anger over being removed from the active roster. It will take months of extra time on the training fields relearning how to fight before Kakashi is returned to duty, and months more figuring out how to incorporate the Sharingan into a style created without it. Kakashi will come through this newest heartbreak stronger in more ways than one; wearing the scars and carrying the lessons it’s given him with pride while Minato will smile and take Kakashi’s new tardiness with the same humor Obito always received.

Minato’s own grief will be quiet, a permanent heartache rarely spoken about, and it will only be in the first couple months that it will be easy to spot the pain haunting his blue eyes. He will forever blame Obito’s death on himself, and so all that Rin and Kakashi suffer because of it as well.

But today Minato accepts two missions, because Konoha is at war, manpower is low, and the missions are vital. His students are skilled and he’ll be only a kunai’s throw away if they need him, he reasons. He has confidence in them.

When Minato arrives home again, he’ll have two students instead of three. Sometimes, it will feel like less.

He just doesn’t know it yet.


End file.
